This invention relates to a method for denaturing allergens in the environment.
A lot of people suffered from allergic diseases like asthma, atopic dermatitis and so on for long years. Mainly house dust mites that live in the house, hair of pets and various kinds of pollens can be the substances that cause these allergic diseases. Recently, treatments those use medicines are applied to allergic patients. On the other hands, removing allergens those cause allergic disease from the environment where allergic patients live is also a useful method that protects from the exposure of allergens. It is reported in Japan, Europe and the United States of America that removing allergens can improve condition of patients.
Cleaning using a vacuum cleaner or an air conditioner and the use of high-density cover on the bedclothes are applied for removing allergens. However, a vacuum cleaner cannot remove all of the allergens that exist in the house, and an air conditioner can remove allergens that exist only in the atmosphere. Further, high-density cover merely protects allergens inside of bedclothes and is not useful for the allergens that come from the environment. Therefore, these methods are not fully satisfied.
Recently the methods for denaturing allergens chemically have been developed. For example, the methods that use tannic acid (JP Hei-02-016731A) and extracts of tea leaf, gallic acid and so on are proposed. However, it is hard to get steady effectiveness for denaturing allergens using these proposed methods. And these methods make the problem that causes coloring on the materials treated with the proposed denaturing agent.
Generally acaricides are used for controlling house dust mites. However, house dust mites, such as Dermatophagoides farinae, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, and so on can be the source of allergens even after dying and these dead bodies of house dust mites gradually decompose and release fine particles of allergens. As the results, controlling of house dust mites by applying acaricides is not always useful to remove allergens from the environment.
The present invention was found as the results of earnest efforts to solve these problems, and provides that use of one or more calcium and/or strontium metal salts gives excellent denaturing efficacy on allergens without any coloring trouble on the treated material and that the treatment of the alkaline earth metal salt selected from calcium and strontium salts can steadily denature the allergens those exist in the environment.